How do you establish when & where it is recorded that Jewish families took on their “new” surnames? 
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Hello. I would like to join to research info about my 4 x g grandfather Abraham ben Gedaliah Tiktin 1764 - 1820. With thx.

Hi Karen,

I assume you are interested in name changes in the United States.  I highly recommend getting a copy of Kirsten Fermaglich's book, "A Rosenberg By Any Other Name".  New York University Press 2018.  The subtitle of the book is "A History Of Jewish Name Changing In America" and should answer most of your questions about "new" surnames.
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Joel Weintraub
Dana Point, CA

If you are referring to the adoption of surnames when previously none were used, I do not think any such registers exist in the former Russian Empire. (I cannot speak to the Austrian Empire).  For a handful of relatives I have been able to trace them without last names in the 1795 Grand Duchy of Lithuania tax records and with last names in the 1811 Revision List.  It is interesting that the particular 1811 list I was looking at (Mikhaliskis) listed far more people with no last names than with last names.  By the time the 1818 Revision List came out, almost everyone had a last name.  So, despite the law saying they needed to take last names by 1808, it seems like compliance was very slow.
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Peter Cohen
California

Hi Karen,

Does your question refer to when surnames were required to be taken in The Russian Empire, or elsewhere?  Or, do you mean when some families chose to change their surname after immigration to The U.S. or other countries?

If you can clarify your question than I'm sure you will get good answers.

Regards,

Sherri Bobish

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Hello. I would like to join to research info about my 4 x g grandfather Abraham ben Gedaliah Tiktin 1764 - 1820. With thx.

Karen said:
    Thank you. I am interested in how to determine the details of the earlier names of my relatives in Germany .
Your query is quite general. Start by looking up the names in Menk's "Dictionary of German-Jewish Surnames".
This will hint at the towns where the surname came from. Pages 3&4 of the book give the dates when surnames were mandated in various parts of Germany. Pages 106 and following give references to many of the source documents.

To give one example that you mention, Tiktin may have been used in Breslau as early as 1737, which makes it quite an early Ashkenasi surname. But, as a toponym (from the Polish town of Tykocin), it may have been adopted by several unrelated families at different times in different places.

In a previous posting (from October 2020), I gave a link to a publication listing 3755 Jewish name adoptions from Silesia, dating from 1814. However, page 3 of Menk's book makes clear that the district around Breslau took surnames in the 1790s, so the surname Tiktin does not appear in the 1814 list.

I hope this helps a bit,
Rodney Eisfelder,
Melbourne Australia